Internet Addiction

Addiction is usually defined as being tightly under the influence of certain substance ; the addicted subject has to take this substance in order to regulate his behavior. This situation is mainly defined for smokers, drug takers and painkiller addicted persons. But always have been some others aspects of addiction which have not solicited the attention probably because they are not related to tangible substances. These addictions are described as psychological disorders. In fact the subject behave in an abnormal way versus certain sensory stimulator and he therefore attached to them. The symptoms are similar to regular addiction yet the causes are very different. With the tech evolution, internet has become classified as an addictive factor; people tend to spend many hours per day staring at their monitors or grabbing their smart phones. Nowadays, it is about internet addiction.

Symptoms of internet addiction

Like any psychological disorder, internet addiction has several symptoms. The subject develops particular behaviors and builds maladaptive relationships with the environment.

Actually, the subject would be concentrated on the monitor, whether browsing or playing online games. The particular behaviors include:

Spending much time using the internet; the subject would be not able to determine how much time he is spending logged in. the shock is when he realizes that he has missed some several daily activities like eating.

Isolation: the subject would abandon family and friends meetings prioritizing logging onto internet. This leads to progressive loss of social bounds and the loss of interest in communication.

Loss of accuracy: the subject would be unable to complete several tasks at home or at work because of the time he spends logged in. internet addiction create this schedule conflict which has dramatic effects on your social and professional state of the subject; the subject, therefore, would be always judged as an incompetent element.

Arguing in favor of internet: the subject will be always prompt to defend –even aggressively- the time he spends logged in. the internet time is very sacred and the subject tends to allocate more schedules to this hobby.

Resorting to internet as anti-depressant: the subject will resort to internet in order to reduce stress or anxiety. This behavior is similar painkillers or drugs addictions.

This last symptom is sometimes listed as one of the most important causes of internet addiction. In fact, being socially rejected can lead to seeking refuge in the internet use which may lead to more attachment.

Causes of internet addiction:

The main causes of internet addiction are several mental disorders that may have they origins in some social cases.

Seek for information: some people have excessive need for knowledge and information. Since internet is the right place to look for information about anything, they easily become addicted to that source.

Seek of friendship: some people are unable to build and maintain bounds in the real world, they become addict to the virtual world where social media site offer an imitation; and where you can have many relationships.

Fighting Internet addiction:

The first thing to do is to persuade the subject that he has the internet addiction. Then it is critical to define the causes. Once the causes are identified, processing by the cognitive-behavioral therapy methods is the best way to recover from the addiction. No medicine is involved, just new healthy habit to introduce. The main goal is to gain self confidence and avoid internet as source of peace.

Conclusion:

Internet addiction stands as the proof that the human brain responds equally to addictive substances as well as to sensory stimulations. It is easy then to conclude that addiction is none but a psychological disorder related to cognitive and behavioral disorder. It is not strange that cognitive behavioral therapy principles are the best remedies to this mental state.